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Dubai To London And All The Tech I Learnt In Between 👩🏼‍💻

Em 💫 on August 04, 2020

A quick intro before I get onto the main event; My name is Emma, on Twitter you can find me at @britnorcodes . I'm a Software Engineer and I've bee...
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skaytech profile image
skaytech

Great Article Emma!! If I may ask you this, since you grew up in the middle east, how easy/difficult was it for you to culturally adjust back in London. I'm guessing 'dubai' would still be 'home' to you. Correct?

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Em 💫

Hey Skay! Thank you so much ☺ yes dubai is still where I call home! My parents are both still there too. It was relatively easy to adjust to but there are still things now i find strange in london because its so different to whats normal back home! ☺

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skaytech profile image
skaytech

I do have a close friend who's had a similar experience. Her parents are from a different part of India, so her language and culture are very different from the place she grew up. It was funny for a long time, because, people who assume so much based on how she looked but when she spoke a different language, their minds would just give up. 🤣😂
It's funny the way our minds interprets things in general 😎 But, thanks for sharing the article. Looking forward to more stuff from you. One tip I can give you is add some images (any random ones or gifs) between paragraphs, it improves readability and greatly increases engagement. Good luck!!

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Em 💫

Thanks for the feedback Skay ☺ will definitely take that one board and add more imagery in my next blog!

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skaytech profile image
skaytech

Great! While this article talks about how to write great LinkedIn articles, I think this one can be applied everywhere in general. I'll share the link in Twitter as well. Good luck once again!

linkedin.com/pulse/5-must-read-tip...

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Stephanie 🌞

Hey Em! I follow you on Twitter so when you popped up on Dev I thought I'd give this article a lil read.

I loved reading this, especially as a gal who also went to Uni of Leeds (studied History though, nothing tech-y - just finished a coding bootcamp in Leeds!).

I wish I'd had your kind of initiative in carving out that tech path for yourself - my school and teachers knew I had a knack for tech, but also for History, and I was never told that I could be interested in and pursue two things. Really admire you for that! But especially that you did tech stuff AND made it "feminine" with all that 1D. Love it.

Also love the honesty in this about how different people learn at different speeds. More people need to be honest like this and recognise that that's normal, and that one is not necessarily better than the other. Slow and steady, amirite?

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Em 💫

Hey Stephanie 😀 Firstly, thanks so much for taking the time to read my blog post! And secondly thanks for such lovely feedback ❤️ And yes, you're so right! When people panic and try to speedily learn things, that's when stuff gets missed and more often than not you have to go back and revisit the basics again

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lucy h

Hey! It was so helpful & refreshing to read your story after having the same kind of experiences with A-Levels myself. I really loved art & literature but I also had an interest in computers , but didn't know what to do with this passion and so I ended up studying Computer Science at uni. Subsequently I fell in love with my web dev module and hoping to put this to good use in my final year!
Thanks so much for this post, it's really inspired me :-)

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Em 💫

Hello Lucy 👋 It makes me so happy to know this post has inspired you ✨ Sounds like you're smashing it 💪

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Doaa Mahely

Hello from Abu Dhabi 👋🏽 I enjoyed reading your story Emma.
I suspect I would’ve loved PHP as much as you did if it had been my first language. Mine was Java and my professor would literally make us repeat public static void main so it is very ingrained in me and I will always love it, not that I would use it in any project today 😅

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Em 💫

Hello Doaa! Awh nice, I've only been to Abu Dhabi a couple of times. Haha I can imagine! Honestly I feel like PHPs older sister trying to defend it when people criticise it 😂 and thanks for the feedback!

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Mike Bybee

I'm not going to lie to you, I haven't always had a passion for computers and software engineering, I kind of stumbled into this world, with no prior knowledge that it existed. There is a common misconception that all Software Engineers have lived, breathed and typed code since they were very young, I can confidently debunk. You really can start at any age.

I didn't start coding until I was 22. Having the worst CS teacher ever in high school scared me away until then. Didn't even care about computers at all until I was 18, and only then to find free software to replace all the music gear (synths, drum machines, effects processors, sequencers etc., I've been a songwriter since I was 17) that I lost to pawn shops to pay bills after moving out on my own.

Fortunately, I didn't go straight to college, because I had no idea what I wanted to do back then, and it would have been an even bigger waste of time and money than I consider the two career relevant programs I did attend (I've never used more than 2% of what I learned in any job since, and actually feel that I learned more useful for the job from working at Starbucks).

While I did a ton of freelancing in IT, design, and development, I didn't make my formal entrance into the industry until a few years after that and, even then, it was on the IT side. Continuing to freelance, I didn't make the lateral move to dev until a few years later still; but I never looked back once I did.

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Shivaram Ayyalasomayajula

Hi Emma! The way you described your journey was amazing. You just expressed everything in a simple manner where it can be helpful for people who want to learn for code. That's good to know you love JS frameworks along with PHP. Wish you very good luck. Happy coding Emma.

Its such valuable information was given in this article especially for those who just started their career. I was excited to read more articles from you.😀.I am from computer science background. Initially, I have not shown much interest to do for code. After reading blogs like similar to you. I have just got interested and started coding a little bit. Especially, These words from your article are such a love where everyone will come across in their lives. at least once.

So may I know on what type of projects do u build and learn in your free time?

****People learn at different speeds, this took me SO long to actually process and accept, don't feel defeated because people around you are moving quicker, your time will come, keep at it.*❤

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Andrew Baisden

Cool article I enjoyed reading it.

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Em 💫

Thank you! 😊

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Md Abdul Momin

An inspirational experience writing!

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Nick Taylor

Welcome to DEV and congrats on your first post! 👋

Whale hello there!

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Em 💫

Thank you 😄

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spiritupbro

so cool i never been to dubai i hope someday i will go there also

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Em 💫

do it! 🙌🏼

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khaleel gibran

Hi from Dubai! 👋 Wow, your journey is amazing, keep being awesome!

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Em 💫

Thank you ☺☺

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momonaebuy

Hi from Ethiopia,I enjoyed reading your story.thank you for sharing your experience .

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Em 💫

Hello 👋 and thank you 😊

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Robin 2077

You inspired me by your experience Emma. Thanks for sharing.